[mywacaday]

I've often thought why not dam a whole estuary or bay and use hydro to collect the energy on the the fall and rise of the tide. I know the environmental impact wouldake it unpalatable but are there any reasons it wouldn't work?

[lelag]

It's been done. Biggest one is Sihwa Lake Tidal Power Station[1] and France had a 240MW tidal plant since the 60s [2].

This type of project has been few and far between and I would guess they might be very costly to build and maintain compared to the harvested energy.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sihwa_Lake_Tidal_Power_Station [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rance_Tidal_Power_Station

[macNchz]

This is interesting–it made me wonder if this had ever been considered on NYC's East River, which is a tidal estuary with strong currents. Turns out there's been a company working on it for a while, with free-moving turbines rather than something that spans the whole thing: https://www.energy.gov/eere/water/articles/tidal-testing-und...

[KeplerBoy]

Meet project Atlantropa, a proposed plan to dam the Mediterranean (or more accurately the atlantic ocean) at the strait of Gibraltar. A project so absurd and gigantic it would deserve its own thread really.

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantropa

[bagels]

Meanwhile, Egypt wants to expand the mediterranian: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qattara_Depression_Project

[KeplerBoy]

That's interesting,I have never heard of it before.

It seems outright feasible and sensible in comparison.

[himinlomax]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rance_Tidal_Power_Station

240 MW, built in 1966.

[flipbrad]

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/1-severn-tidal-po...

[hardlianotion]

That Severn project has on-again, off-again cycles that are typical of so many UK infrastructure projects. It's a little depressing.

[theropost]

Where I'm from they have some of the highest tides in the entire world and there's an area not far from here that has always been sort of a local talking candidate for such a huge project.

https://earthsciencesociety.com/2014/05/01/a-tidal-power-lag...